


Elänor

by mitchan



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gardens & Gardening, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Nostalgia, themes of death and loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 01:59:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19097449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitchan/pseuds/mitchan
Summary: In the garden, Elänor remembers her father.





	Elänor

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a timed challenge way back in 2004, probably published only in my LJ account. One of the very few pieces I wrote that I felt are worth reposting in here.

The earth of the garden was soft and humid, warming the tips of her fingers. She had inherited her father’s love for gardening and all the plants and flowers that grew from the earth, a passion which she would pass on to her descendants.

As she dug into the soil and laid the seeds inside it with extreme gentleness, her two sons and two daughters watching, Elänor Gamgee saw in her mind’s eye, as vivid and clear as if it had happened a few moments ago, a scene long lost in time, but well-kept in the depths of her soul.

Many years ago, so many she couldn’t count them, she had sat down on the soft earth in the garden of Bag End, watching, fascinated, her father’s hands handling plants and flowers as carefully and lovingly as one would touch a lover. He was completely absorbed in his work, gazing entranced at the withered stems he was cutting out, and again with _that_ smile on his face.

Her father smiled often, big and open grins that made Elänor smile back feeling all warm inside. But it was in rare occasions that she saw upon his face a very different expression. Looking back, she would describe it as… melancholic. Like if he were remembering something that had made him very happy, something he no longer had.

Samwise Gamgee used to tell stories of his past adventures to his children before bedtime, so Elänor didn’t have much trouble uncovering the memory behind his father’s strange smiles.

On that particular day, Elänor thought that she was old enough to finally ask the question. She had lived twelve winters, and she was ready. “Dad? Is it- is it Mr. Frodo, dad? The one you’re thinking about when you smile like that?”

Sam slowly turned around to look at his daughter with a gaze that was not completely there. He smiled that weird smile, and nodded. Some moments passed, in which Elänor looked up expectantly at her father, who in turn stared off into space with an expression in his eyes so intense it made the little hobbit girl hurt in her belly.

Eventually Elänor decided to press him a bit more. “Why did he go away, dad? If he liked us so much? I think he…” she broke off, unsure, until her father’s questioning eyes gave her the strength to continue, “I think he made you suffer, going away like that.”

Sam didn’t answer at once; he dug his hands into the inviting coolness of the earth, and spoke in a soft, distant voice his daughter had never heard, “I’m not sure you’ll understand, Elänor. I am like the trees and flowers of this garden, with my roots deep inside this earth, happy to be here, protecting my family. Not Mr. Frodo. Not him. He was… for him, having an earth to grow on was not enough. He was more like the stag we saw in the forest that day, do you remember? A stag that was wounded beyond recovery. A wounded stag does not need the nourishment earth gives. It needs something else, something a home cannot give.”

“What, daddy?” she asked, breathless.

“Oblivion.”

At the time, she hadn’t known what _oblivion_ meant. She had just kept quiet, watching and learning as her father planted new seeds and removed, one by one, the nasty bugs that harmed the plants.

It wasn’t until now that she could grasp entirely what Samwise Gamgee had been talking about that afternoon in her childhood memory. But she had always known, deep inside her, that he would eventually follow Mr. Frodo. As she thought of her mother’s tomb, her father’s weeping, and his weary arms waving slowly, like the branches of a tree in the afternoon breeze, as the boat disappeared into the distance in the grey sea, a single tear sled down her rosy cheeks, fell to the ground, and was absorbed by the earth.

“Mum? Is something wrong?” her children asked her.

She smiled not unlike her father had done in those rare moments when he was alone, and answered, “It’s alright. I just love this garden very much.”

 


End file.
